Ships in Shifting Waters
by GypsyGrl77
Summary: Harry had never really had a friend before – he supposed that was as good as an excuse as any as to why he had not realized that he possessed one now.


**I own nothing - wish I did, but life isn't always what you wish for. Drat.**

**Thanks to my beta, Andromeda13LV. Trust me, she helped a lot. =)**

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Chapter 1 - Friendship

Harry had never really had a friend before – he supposed that was as good as an excuse as any as to why he had not realized that he possessed one now.

His past experiences with friendship consisted of a pet mouse he had hidden in the cupboard for a happy week and a transfer kid when he was nine that shunned him after twenty glorious minutes because of Dudley and his motley group. Considering this, it really wasn't that big of a shock. Harry was used to being a loner, almost to the point where it suited him. He was able to take care of himself in most situations and he found that inner monologues could end up being rather stimulating depending on the general topic since imagination always far exceeded his reality.

It was simply how life was for the boy. Other kids rode bikes together and Harry shoved Dudley's broken two-wheeler up the stairs with the rest of his cousin's inadequate toys as part of his chores. He dreamed about a flying motorbike though. Children in his class bragged about how big of a birthday cake their mothers had baked for them, while little Harry iced a three layer cake for his cousin each year without ever getting a taste. However, once a year, he would pretend that his cracker he got on his birthday had candles that exploded like fireworks. He had learned to be content with his pattern.

Harry just pretended everything he had was everything he wanted it to be, while realizing he would never get his desires.

This is why he was struck so hard when he noticed that he had a _friend_ all of a sudden.

Or, at least, when someone pointed it out to the poor kid.

Harry was walking into the dorm room for the first years, desperate not to be noticed. He eased open the door, peering in slowly to see if anyone was already occupying the area. As he bit his lip deeply enough to cause a gash, he prayed that all the other boys were out around the castle. He would not want to interfere with anyone else's life – he was not allowed to. Seeing the beds empty, Harry quickly slipped into the room, pushed the door shut, and ran for his bed.

Then he let his emotions out.

He cried.

As an eleven year old, albeit one who was used to the hatred of his family, Harry could not understand why the potions professor hated him with such a passion. On the first day, Harry had gone in hoping to learn everything he could. This was his chance to be worthy, and he was not going to mess it up. Well, he planned on not messing it up. In reality, Harry had failed miserably, embarrassing himself that day and every class period after.

Not that Harry would ever admit that it hurt to anyone. It had been drilled into his head at a young age that no one liked complainers who had no right to moan about their situation. The school had taken Harry in, decided that he was good enough to be a wizard, and treated him the same as any other kid. That was how Harry wanted to keep it. So, Harry acted like everything was great – which it really was better than at the Dursley's already since he had practically no chores and plenty of food – and only cried when no one else was able to hear.

What Harry had not been counting on was his roommate being in the bathroom at five thirty at night.

Ron wandered out of the showers, red hair still damp and slightly darker than its usual tone. He at first did not notice Harry, as he was towel-drying his face as he walked toward his bed and proceeded to button up his white shirt. Once he clued in to the fact that a slight sniffling noise was coming from across the room, however, he turned sharply.

This was when Harry noticed Ron was in the room, as Ron caused a floorboard to loudly squeak as he spun. Harry jerked up in surprise, staring blankly at the fellow student before him. He froze – he had never been caught before at Hogwarts crying, as he was very careful to be sure he was alone, and he did not want Ron to hate him. Ron was the one that Harry seemed to spend the most time with out of all the kids at the new school, and therefore was the worst possible person to have seen Harry so weak and foolish.

Harry knew he needed to fix the situation quickly.

Harry scrambled off the bed, rushing toward Ron.

"Ron, look," Harry began, wiping his eyes with his long sleeve harshly to rid himself of as much physical evidence as he could and directing his eyes down to the floor for his much-practiced speech. "I'm sorry for the_ inconvenience_ just now. I know that I should be better, and I will be in the future. I hope you can forget all about this. If you need me to, erm, do something to make it up for you, I will. I know I was wrong, and I can be good. I swear."

Harry stopped abruptly, as this was as far as he usually got in his speech before his family members would tell him about how much of a failure he was, just like his idiot father and no-good mother, and how he did not deserve the good way he was treated by them all, as he was rubbish just like them. Then, he would be given some extra chores, reminded of how he did not deserve the kindness they gave him, and told to grow up. Harry was not sure exactly what Ron would say, as he had never met Harry's parents and could only ask Harry to do his homework for him, but Harry was willing to take on the punishment. He knew he had earned it by crying. Harry had no business crying – Ron was far too kind to him for Harry to be allowed to cry at all.

And he didn't want to lose Ron.

God, the last thing he wanted to do was lose Ron.

After a few minutes of silence, which Harry assumed Ron was using to think up what he wanted Harry to do for him, Harry decided to glance up. He realized that this was a risk, as Harry was not to look at his betters, especially after he had made a mistake like this, but he needed to know just how mad Ron was.

So Harry peered through his dark, long bangs to see Ron's face.

He seemed to be in some state of shock.

The youth's eyes were wide as dinner plates, the black pupils on their way to swallowing the sea blue irises that circled the darker centers. His eyebrows were high up on his forehead, disappearing into his matching hairline, giving Ron the look Seamus had been dealt a few weeks previously by his errant spell work. The skin under his thousands of freckles, which usually seemed to glow with a tan Ron earned over the summer at his home, was slightly pallid, and almost seemed unnatural in the shadowed dorm room due to the late hour and tall beddings.

He stared at Harry, seeming lost for words.

Harry was unsure with how to proceed at this point. His aunt and uncle never hesitated to yell at him at home – especially his uncle. The young boy wondered if maybe he should run for it first (which was dismissed quickly as it would only anger Ron more in the long run, which would not be good for Harry at all), followed by the thought of perhaps poking Ron to be sure he was still conscious. Granted, Harry assumed he was, as he was standing, but he figured that maybe it was some kind of spell, a precaution done by the school or Ron's mother before the boy left his house. He had no clue really. Harry still did not really understand magic yet, and he was never sure what miracles it could produce.

Being the eleven year old genius Harry was, he decided to go with the poke.

He did so right in the center of Ron's stomach – a light prod that barely caused Ron's shirt to brush against his skin. Failing to gain any attention the first time around, Harry proceeded to attempt again. The second push was actually a little harder than necessary.

That got a reaction for sure.

"Owww!" Ron exclaimed, backing away from the offending finger and running into his bed behind him, causing him to stumble, topple over and land rather ungracefully on the wood floor.

"Ron?" Harry asked as he ran to make sure his classmate was alright.

Ron immediately shot up, rubbing his head quite harshly around the crown with a scowl decorating his face. He turned to face Harry, glaring directly at his face this time with clarity.

"What the bloody hell was that for, Harry? You didn't need to shock me like that! I banged my head right on the edge of the bed! What in the name of Merlin did I do to deserve that, eh?"

Harry stiffened abruptly, knowing that finally Ron was going to let him have it. Granted, now Harry deserved it even more so, as he had caused him pain as well as taken up far too much of his time. The only time Harry had ever been the reason for his uncle to be hurt, when poor little seven year old Harry had tipped some hot soup into Vernon's lap while bringing the food to the table, he had gone days without food and was shunned to the cupboard for two weeks. This was worse than that, as Harry had deliberately jabbed his finger at the other boy's belly.

Harry, of course, started rambling off apologies again.

"Ron, I am so sorry! I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and I guess I poked you too hard. But the first time, you just kept staring, and I needed you to wake up, because I wasn't really sure if you were passed out or something and your mum had put some kind of spell on you to keep you standing or whatever. I mean, I know you were already angry before and all, but –"

"Wait, why do you think I was angry before?" Ron interrupted, seeming to suddenly remember why he had been stunned in the first place.

Harry shifted his weight uncomfortably, wringing his hands and pulling at his fingers.

"Well, you walked in from the bathroom, and… and I was… I was crying," Harry began. "I know I'm not supposed to! And I promise I won't anymore! I just thought no one else was here, and –"

"What do you mean, you aren't supposed to cry?" Ron intervened again, developing an even more confused expression. "You mean like some sort of manly thing – like men can't cry? Cause, Harry, if you need to cry, I don't care. Not that I ever cry or anything, you know, but if you want to, that's fine."

It was Harry's turn to stare at his dorm mate now. He, however, did not remain standing, sinking to the floor and sitting haphazardly. He forced himself to glance up at Ron, not really believing what he had heard.

"What?"

Ron glanced around the room, appearing nervous and out of sorts in the face of Harry's reaction.

He continued, "Yeah, if you are upset, you can cry if you need to. I mean, you can always talk to me as well, I suppose, since we are mates and everything."

**Mates**.

That was another word for friends.

Ron had said that they were mates… and mates meant friends. That meant that Harry was Ron's mate – Ron's friend. And Ron was his… his friend.

Harry had a friend.

After Harry thought about this for a moment, he realized that this could possibly be true. Whenever Harry would see Dudley with his friend Piers, they would talk to each other a lot. They usually ate together, which Harry knew for certain as he was the one who would serve them. Dudley would share his stuff with Piers, like his new computer or his video games. Piers tended to nudge Dudley with his shoulder when he thought something was funny, such as Harry being yelled at by his aunt for folding the towels too sloppily. Most importantly, the two always seemed happy to see each other, ready for the next kid to bully or toy to break.

Looking back, Harry tried to remember his and Ron's interactions. He wanted to see if he and Ron were really friends, needed to make sure it was for real.

Harry realized that he and Ron did talk to each other an awful lot. Ron was usually the first person Harry greeted in the morning, receiving a polite grunt of welcome in return, and he was always the last Harry spoke with at night. Throughout the day, as they had every class together as first years, they would sit next to each other and discuss how much homework they had, though never when they would do it, and how evil the professor from the class before had been. Whenever something happened to Ron, such as a letter from home coming care of his mum or a particularly foul detention he had braved alone with Snape, Harry was the first to hear about it. And he was the only one to get the true story it seemed, as Ron liked to exaggerate the tales to the rest of the school.

So Harry and Ron did talk quite a bit.

Also, they ate every meal together. They walked down to the Great Hall side by side to each meal, sitting in the same seats each day. Harry knew by now that Ron rather enjoyed bacon at breakfast, so he was sure to pass that down to the boy before he began filling his own plate. Ron, in return, seemed to make sure that Harry had enough food on his plate at the start, as Harry had slipped one day as to why he was so thin. Ron tended to give Harry a serving of the dish he was having, adding it to Harry's automatically at this point.

Ron also never left the table until Harry had cleared at least half his overflowing plate – which meant Harry couldn't leave either of course.

Ron, though not the most well-off individual himself, was constantly allowing Harry to borrow his clothes, mainly the thick woolen sweaters that his mum knit for him and his siblings. This was because Ron had noticed Harry one day in a thin long-sleeve shirt crouched before the common room fire, desperate to warm up his chilled arms and legs. Ron had told him to stop being an idiot and get a sweater on if he was so cold, for Merlin's sake. Harry then had been forced to admit that what he had on was the thickest he owned.

Harry always seemed to have a sweater at night when it was drafty in the castle after that.

Now that Harry thought about it, Ron also tended to push Harry on the shoulder whenever he was laughing at something particularly hilarious. Harry remembered once when Dean recounted the incident of Seamus mixing in potions without consulting a book – for the third time. Seamus had ended up with purple hair, orange skin, and for some unknown reason a fuchsia tail. Ron had first roared with laughter to himself, wrapping his arms around his middle and leaning forward until all that was seen was his fiery red hair. Harry had hesitated to join in, as he wasn't sure if he was allowed to make fun of Seamus like that. Suddenly, Ron was pushing Harry forward as well, encouraging him to join in. Harry, suddenly feeling safer, had chuckled slightly with his companion.

Actually, Harry laughed more with Ron around than he ever had before – and Ron was almost always around now.

And, most importantly, Ron seemed to want Harry around, which was a fairly new concept to him. No one wanted to be around the Potter boy – the freak. No one wanted to be that kid's friend. Or at least no one did until now.

He had a friend.

Oh man, now what was he suppose to do?

Harry snapped himself back into the current situation, which consisted of Ron still babbling, having completely missed the glazed expression Harry had taken on.

"– stantly is beyond me, but that is how it is. Mate, you don't have to worry about it any -" Ron was stammering out, as if he was simply desperate to find more words to even say to his companion.

"RON!" Harry yelled, needing to gain back the boy's attention.

"Oh, uh, yeah Harry?"

"You can stop talking now."

"Well, that is bloody good news. I wasn't sure what was going on anymore."

"Me neither."

The two glanced at each other, small smiles forming on their faces.

"Hey, mate, you want to go see whether or not Neville managed to live through Snape's detention?" Ron asked, his smile quickly morphing into a more satisfied smirk. "I mean, he's scared enough of the git while we are all in class with him. Neville alone with the guy with all of those explosives surrounding him… Man, the possibilities are endless."

Harry's started smile changed to a wider grin.

Oh, yes, he had a friend, and it was a beautiful thing.

He was pretty sure nothing would ever change him as much as this.

"Sure, Ron, let's go."

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Please Review - that way I know how I did and what to do better!

**Until next time, **

**GypsyGrl77**


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